#I think Death is asexual and in a sort of arranged marriage with a lesbian?

[mumblingsage]

I'm personally delighted to see a renaissance of appreciation for Tales of the Flat Earth, but I do recommend keeping in mind these are books from the 1980s and are not always progressive by modern standards, or even 1980s standards (a significant example: the setting is clearly influenced by 1001 Arabian Nights but virtually all the characters are white, Death being one exception). Also, sometimes related to that point but also separately, most of the characters are complete assholes (Death again being an exception). They are FUN assholes to read about, but don't go in expecting a lot of good behavior or happy endings (there are some, which I won't spoil). Among other content that could need warning for, there are scenes of sexual coercion and assault.

Again, I deeply enjoyed reading this series, occasionally reread it, and would love to see more people enjoy it too. But I'd hate to see people unpleasantly surprised by the contents. I'd go to Lee's book expecting lush prose about clever, amoral people pursuing their schemes and goals on a mindblowing scale. Some of those amoral people happen to be genderfluid or bisexual. That's very cool, it was progressive in the 1980s and can still be progressive today, but I wouldn't want to go in this one with my hopes too high or my guard too far down.

[alvadee]

@jekyde replied:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2176657/Marilyn-Monroe-The-ultimate-sex-symbol-men-But-did-love-women.html

There's this as well

 https://www.reddit.com/r/asexuality/comments/isgl7c/saw_this_in_twitter_they_said_that_these_were/

Really all you have to do is google "Marilyn Monroe asexual lesbian" and articles will pop up. It's really interesting!

Oh, this might help also  https://silo.tips/download/the-secret-life-of-marilyn-monroe-by-j-randy-taraborrelli

Annnd a bit more for anyone digging into the notes. There's Loooots of her journal entries that shows she has traits of being asexual and/or lesbian. https://twitter.com/gothspiderbitch/status/1303230368594767872

I’m gonna reply here, since it’s much easier.

I don’t know how much you’ve been interested in the life of Marilyn already but I had been obsessed with her for several years and am still very interested in her. In the time I really researched her I learnt that she’s probably the woman in history the most lies get told about. When you just google her you will unfortunately find much more lies than truths about her, simply because that has made the most money since her death. My tip if you’re interested in Marilyn: Find the fan groups and blogs and get your reading tips from there, because there are the people who do all the archiving work just out of love not because they’re trying to sell something or appear in interviews. In general, you have to look up how credible your source is, that’s essential when you want to read anything about Marilyn that gives you any idea of the real person.

That Marilyn was asexual or a lesbian is one of the many unsupported claims about her. 

The facts are Marilyn had been a victim of childhood sexual abuse and that trauma lingered on the rest of her life. It is also true that she was forced to marry a 21 old man when she was 16 to avoid going back to the orphanage. Before the marriage she was afraid of the idea of having sex with him and when married they made it work in a friends with benefits type of arrangement since they weren’t married for love.

With that context you have to read what Marilyn herself had said about her youth:

“My arrival in school, with painted lips and darkened brows, started everybody buzzing. Why I was a siren, I hadn’t the faintest idea. I didn’t want to be kissed, and I didn’t dream of being seduced by a duke or a movie star. The truth was that with all my lipstick and mascara and precocious curves, I was as unresponsive as a fossil. But I seemed to affect people quite otherwise.”

“The first effect marriage had on me was to increase my lack of interest in sex…. Actually our marriage was a sort of friendship with sexual privileges.”

And then there’s this quote from Marilyn’s autobiography “My Story” (ghost-written by Ben Hecht) that people like to conveniently crop to leave out the end...:

“Sex is a baffling thing when it doesn’t happen. I used to wake up in the morning, when I was married, and wonder if the whole world was crazy, whooping about sex all the time. It was like hearing all the time that stove polish was the greatest invention on earth. Then it dawned on me that people – other women – were different from me. They could feel things I couldn’t. And when I started reading books I ran into the words ‘frigid,’ ‘rejected,’ and ‘lesbian.’ I wondered if I was all three of these things. A man who kissed me once had said it was very possible I was a lesbian because I apparently had no response to males - meaning him. I didn’t contradict him because I didn’t know what I was. There were times even when I didn’t feel human and times when all I could think of was dying. There was also the sinister fact that a well-made woman had always thrilled me to look at. Now having fallen in love, I knew what I was. It wasn’t a lesbian. The world and its excitement over sex didn’t seem crazy. In fact, it didn’t seem crazy enough.”

And Marilyn said this to W.J. Weatherby in Conversations with Marilyn (1961):

“I was remembering Monty Clift. People who aren’t fit to open the door for him sneer at his homosexuality. What do they know about it? Labels - people love putting labels on each other. Then they feel safe. People tried to make me into a lesbian. I laughed. No sex is wrong if there’s love in it.”

Marilyn was a supporter of LGBTQ rights but she was straight. 

Here are a few other real quotes by her about sex:

“I’m a failure as a woman. My men expect so much of me, because of the image they’ve made of me — and that I’ve made of myself — as a sex symbol. They expect bells to ring and whistles to whistle, but my anatomy is the same as any other woman’s and I can’t live up to it. “

“Sex is part of nature. I go along with nature.”

“The formation of my lids must make them look heavy or else I’m thinking of something. Sometimes I’m thinking of men. Other times I’m thinking of some man in particular. It’s easier to look sexy when you’re thinking of some man in particular.”

So, to conclude. The Daily Mail is The Daily Mail, not a reliable source they write anything about Marilyn. The asexuality reddit quotes are real and from her autobiography but ignore context and how she said she felt later about sex once she was in love. The stuff from twitter about Marilyn and her acting coach are half true. Marilyn lived with her acting coach Natasha Lytess for a while at the beginning of her career and Lytess confessed a love for Marilyn at the beginning of their relationship but she didn’t reciprocate those feelings. 

She said: “You don’t have to love me, Natasha- just as long as you work with me.” Later, on this Marilyn said, “She was in love with me and she wanted me to love her.” 

Lytess couldn’t overcome her romantic feelings for Marilyn and that’s why Marilyn didn’t continue their friendship after their work relationship had ended.

I personally haven’t read “The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe” by J. Randy Taraborrelli because I’ve heard from other fans that it isn’t the strongest Marilyn biography and has a few holes and contains some inaccuracies, though overall it’s one of the better ones.

And I want to add that since I identify as on the ace spectrum those quotes about her youth also spoke to me but I personally hate it when people try to twist real people into something they weren’t especially after their death. I get the appeal it may have, especially for younger people, to read more into the things she said trying to relate to her, and they're probably not aware just how much misinformation about her is out there, but I think the truth and facts and sources should always be more important when talking about real people/history. Headcanons are reserved for fiction.

[recentanimenews]

Bookshelf Briefs 5/29/17

Bloom Into You, Vol. 2 | By Nakatani Nio | Seven Seas – While there is a lot of yuri out there that can be defined by the words “what is this strange feeling in my heart?,” I’m not sure if any of them are quite as fascinating as Yuu. I’m not entirely sure if this manga is going to go with “Yuu is asexual,” but the first couple of volumes can certainly be read at that. She’s not really aromantic, though, and her relationship with Touko is complicated—and becoming known to others, who may also be asexual. Touko, meanwhile, is the ever-popular “problematic” we see in so many yuri titles as well, and is having trouble balancing that line between consent and just giving in to her desires. Bloom Into You may start like typical yuri, but it’s not headed that way. Good stuff. – Sean Gaffney

Chihayafuru, Vol. 2 | By Yuki Suetsuki | Kodansha Comics (digital only) – Oh, happy sigh. I do love Chihayafuru so much. In this volume, we see the conclusion to the elementary tournament Chihaya, Taichi, and Arata have entered. Sadly, they lose and Arata moves away not long after. Chihaya is certain that they’ll meet again, but as we skip ahead three years to high school, it’s clear that they haven’t really kept in contact. She’s determined to start a karuta club and makes Taichi promise to join if she finally achieves class A ranking. Seeing her compete rekindles his own love of karuta, but when she calls Arata to tell him the good news, she learns he’s stopped playing for a really awful reason. I actually got sniffly when they came face to face again at last. This is the kind of manga where I wish I had dozens of volumes stacked up to marathon. Unequivocally recommended. – Michelle Smith

The Full-Time Wife Escapist, Vol. 3 | By Tsunami Umino | Kodansha Comics (digital only) – Although I enjoy a good cliffhanger as much as the next person, I’m not normally as invested in their outcome as I was for the one at the end of volume two of this series. Before we find out exactly what Tsuzaki and Kazami mean by “sharing” Mikuri, however, there’s an interlude where she and her fake husband must field questions from relatives about their procreation plans. I really enjoy the way Umino is plotting this series—it makes sense why Mikuri would want to take Kazami up on his arrangement, and neatly dovetails into her aunt finding out about it, prompting her to be concerned about the nature of her niece’s marriage. Mikuri doesn’t engage in any flights of fancy this time, but she does do a lot of psychoanalyzing her husband, which is interesting. Definitely looking forward to volume four! – Michelle Smith

Girls’ Last Tour, Vol. 1 | By Tsukumizu | Yen Press – I’m not entirely sure what to make of Girls’ Last Tour. Chito and Yuuri are two chibi-faced young women roaming a post-apocalyptic wasteland on their Kettenkrad motorbike, just trying to survive. There are parts of this series I really liked. I love the depictions of desolate cities, or cavernous interiors… it reminds me a little of BLAME! in that respect, which is a major compliment. Too, I like their brief interaction with a guy named Kanazawa, who has found meaning for his life in creating maps, and that other levels exist where conditions might be different. I find that I really want to know how things turned out this way. That said, I strenuously dislike Yuuri, and there are some really unfunny gags featuring her that I guess are supposed to be moe or something but just piss me off. Still, I’ll be continuing! – Michelle Smith

Golden Time, Vol. 7 | By Yuyuko Takemiya and Umechazuke | Seven Seas – Linda is mostly absent from this volume, which allows us to focus on the odd triangle between Kouko, Banri, and Banri’s old self, which seems to literally be sabotaging his relationship, though he’s also being helped by coincidental disaster and bad choices, particularly “don’t drive home when you’re all sleepy,” which leads to Kouko, understandably, having a complete nervous breakdown as several of her long-standing issues combine with nightmares she’s having about the car accident. Fortunately, Bari gets over his own issues to an extent in time to be there for her, and much to my surprise we get a ‘girlfriend’s dad’ who’s supportive and not a caricature. As good as ever. – Sean Gaffney

Kase-san and Bento | By Hiromi Takashima | Seven Seas – After getting together in the first volume, this second in the “Kase-san and” series continues to show off the awkwardness that comes with having just gotten together. Both girls still don’t know each other that well, and misunderstandings abound. But they’re all relatively easy to resolve misunderstandings, which is good, because no one is reading this for overwrought lesbian drama. We’re reading it because Yamada is adorable, Kase-san is spunky, and the two of them together are wonderful. There are a few more kisses, and Yamada is slowly gaining confidence. And there are bentos. Which, you know, you would expect thanks to the title. Cuteness personified. – Sean Gaffney

Maid-sama!, Vols. 15-16 | By Hiro Fujiwara | Viz Media – I had thought Maid-sama ended with volume sixteen, but I was wrong. And indeed, much of this volume is about reminding me that it’s not just as simple as “Misaki admits she likes him, the end.” Usui comes with baggage, though, and we learn a lot about that baggage in this volume, including the story of how his parents met—it’s steeped in class issues and tragedy. And as such Misaki, who is as common as they come, has it hammered into her that she can never be with him as she can’t cross those class barrier. Misaki, of course, is ready to kick your class barrier down with her best quality—her sheer stubbornness. Oh yes, and Misaki’s father returns. Please ignore that entire plotline; it’s awful. – Sean Gaffney

Requiem of the Rose King, Vol. 6 | By Aya Kanno | Viz Media – There’s a lot of good stuff going on in this volume, not the least of which is the tragic death of a major character, but it’s sort of hard to get past THAT SCENE. I said “poor Anne” at the end of my last review, and boy, I wasn’t kidding, though frankly she takes it far better than I expected. But man, Margaret. She’s always been one of my favorite Shakespeare villains, as well as one of his best female characters, and BOY HOWDY does Kanno convey that in a fantastic way. You want to recoil from the page. As for Henry and Richard, I think by necessity we are headed to the end of that relationship soon, unless there’s some rewriting of canon beyond what we’ve already seen. Riveting. -Sean Gaffney

Toriko, Vol. 38 | By Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro | Viz Media – Thankfully, this volume was considerably more interesting than the previous one, though I am still grateful we’re heading for the end. Most of the volume focuses on Komatsu and the other cooks, and I am reminded that this is really Komatsu’s story as much as Toriko’s, and he’s had a lot farther to develop. Beyond that, we have the usual impressive shone n stunts, monsters galore, and a decent amount of food, though I miss the days when food was the only thing driving this manga. And again, the relationship between Toriko and Komatsu may not be explicitly gay, but it’s certainly far deeper than any relationships the two of them have with their love interests. Keep at it if you’ve been reading it. – Sean Gaffney

Welcome to the Ballroom, Vol. 5 | By Tomo Takeuchi | Kodansha Comics – The Tenpei Cup has come to an end, and Tatara Fujita must return to normal life. After successfully getting into high school, he is upfront about his love of dancesport in his self-introduction, earning the mockery of the girl who sits in front of him, Chinatsu Hiyama. However, it soon becomes apparent that not only is Chinatsu a big fan of Sengoku and his partner, Chizuru Hongo, but she has some experience with ballroom dance. Hey, how convenient that such a character shows up right when Tatara is in need of a new partner! Imagine that. Anyway, this is mostly a transitional volume, and featured a couple of people saying unkind things about their overweight friend, so I didn’t enjoy it as much as previous volumes. I’m still on board for the next one, though. – Michelle Smith

By: Michelle Smith